Gymno

Saturday, November 05, 2005

Friday, November 04, 2005

I am dumb. I've spent the past several days going stir crazy from too many hours on the couch and in my bed. And when I finally ventured to ask a few friends to come over and keep me company, they all immediately agreed and commiserated about how the worst part about being sick is being cooped up alone in your apartment. One friend even mentioned that I should have been calling and asking people to bring me soup and movies and just offer some comfort. Which is precisely what I've been needing. Someday I will get better about asking for it.

In other news, I consumed way too much queso tonight. Whoa. So. Full. of. Cheese.

In still other news, The Boondocks premiers on Adult Swim this Sunday Night. "Jesus is black, Ronald Reagan is the devil, and the government is lying about 9/11." Oh yeah, it's going to be good.

Monday, October 31, 2005

A asked me to read it, and Amelia has already posted about it - Maureen Dowd's "What's a Modern Girl to Do?" in Sunday's Times Magazine. This will be easier as bullet points:

1) Yes, many of the things Dowd says are true, but

2) They come worded in her grossly cutesy language and with far too little anger for my taste -2.1) "To the extent that young women are rejecting the old idea of copying men and reshaping the world around their desires, it's exhilarating progress. But to the extent that a pampered class of females is walking away from the problem and just planning to marry rich enough to cosset themselves in a narrow world of dependence on men, it's an irritating setback." no longer trying to reshape the world around our desires is 'exhilarating progress' but turning the clock back 50 years is merely 'an irritating setback'?! not to mention that whole copying men thing is one of those awful urban legends perpetuated by the backlash.2.2) "It was naive and misguided for the early feminists to tendentiously demonize Barbie and Cosmo girl, to disdain such female proclivities as shopping, applying makeup and hunting for sexy shoes and cute boyfriends and to prognosticate a world where men and women dresed alike and worked alike in navy suits and were equal in every way." female proclivities? is she serious?

3) overall, my problems are a) she perpetuates the negative stereotype of feminism without appearing to make any effort whatsoever to research what the word actually means or what the movement actually represents and b) where's the anger? she reinforces this notion that women must either raise babies or have careers but never both and that that choice is strictly one for them to make and never for one second even questions that the mere existence of such a choice might, just might, have something to do with, oh yeah, the other 49% of the population! Instead of decrying the current sad state of things (something which she does do with some degree of accuracy) why not actually buck the system and ask why, over the past 50 years are we, women, stuck with this apparently dichotomous choice? (which, if you think about it, means to a certain extent that men are too) Why not use the article as an opportunity to discuss sharing of household and career duties and flexible work hours and all sorts of things that might one day lead to something more closely resembling actual equality? And why sound so resigned to the whole thing? I repeat - where's the anger?

The last article in yesterday's Times Magazine is called "The Vanishing Boy" about an autistic five-year old whose increasingly violent outbursts lead his parents to start giving him prozac. The last paragraph really got me:

"Really? You medicate your son? Our choice required no explanation to parents of disabled kids, but to others I almost had to apologize for...well, getting medicine for my child. The failures of the past and present - those old almanacs and new black-box notices - make us suspicious. But I don't have the luxury of distrust. I do not love that it came to this. I do not love drugs. I do not love the companies that sell them. But I love my son."

Which is really what it should be about. What's best for each individual person, made as an informed decision by the people who care most for them. "...getting medicine for my child." It should be no different than seeking any other medical treatment. Certainly, I am no fan of big pharma and I do fear that we dangerously over-medicate our children and ourselves, particularly in America. But it's not that black and white - drug companies are neither our saviors nor evil incarnate. For some people prescription drugs are probably somewhere between not helpful and a really bad idea. But for others they may mean the return to a 'normal' productive life. And just like we need to start talking more frankly about mental health, we also need to have more open discussions about drugs. About what they do and do not do and when the benefits outweigh the side effects and for whom they seem to be working. It shouldn't be embarassing to say you went to therapy this morning and you shouldn't have to apologize if your child is experiencing better living through chemistry.

Today was a good day. Back in therapy after four or five weeks (or more?) and this morning's session was fantastic. I guess one of the bonuses of having been in therapy recently is that the odd 'touch-up' session often rewards with a big payoff. Of course, the enjoyable sensation of breathing normally only lasted for about five minutes after, but I did gain some useful things to think about on my own time, so I'll take what I can get.

At the end of a long day a friend and I went out for dinner, where a nice bowl of spicy Brunswick stew helped clear up my rapidly closing sinuses. And, I had a lovely conversation with said friend about things. And, despite being perhaps the last person I would have expected to do so, he said, hey, you haven't really been yourself for the past couple of weeks. Everything ok? And that was especially nice.